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Whether it’s a regular cup of Joe from the local Tim Hortons or a designer brand from Starbucks, you just have to look at the early-morning lineups at coffee joints all over the country to realize it’s an essential part of most people’s daily routine.

Plenty of coffee drinkers claim to like not just the taste, but also how coffee makes them feel. The jolt of energy and wakefulness that it provides allows most of us to better face the challenges of the day, whether it’s getting the family out the door in the morning or dealing with a tight deadline at work.

And then there are those who use coffee to ward off drowsiness and improve concentration, like students and shift workers who need ammunition against fatigue.

Of course, it’s not the coffee itself that we’ve come to rely on. It’s the caffeine that provides the pick-me-up we all crave. Classified as a stimulant, caffeine acts on the central nervous system, bolstering mood, energy levels, alertness and reaction time. It can also be found in many other fluids, foods and supplements, including soft drinks, energy drinks, gels, chocolate and in pill form.

Combine the availability of caffeine with its energy-boosting effect, and it’s only natural that athletes are keen to mine its benefits. In fact, athletes have been using caffeine for years in hopes that it can improve performance on the playing field. Turns out it does.

Study after study has shown that ingesting caffeine both before and during exercise extends the time before fatigue — and not just marginally. Cyclists, runners, cross-country skiers and triathletes have shown performance improvements as high as 10 per cent to 15 per cent compared with a placebo.

Simply put, the reason caffeine boosts performance is that it masks the perception of fatigue and recruits more motor units within the body’s muscles. Also advantageous is the fact that caffeine’s effects are fairly long-lasting. Caffeine consumed in the morning will still benefit a workout done later in the day.

This well-known effect resulted in the temporary inclusion of caffeine on the list of banned performance-enhancing substances. From 1984 to 2004, a threshold was established by international athletic associations beyond which caffeine would be considered doping.

The problem is, the performance-enhancing benefits of caffeine are felt with relatively low levels of ingestion, which made it hard to distinguish between coffee addicts and those who consumed caffeine solely to improve performance. Hence the decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2004 to remove caffeine from its list of banned substances.

How much caffeine is needed to give athletes the kind of boost they’re looking for? Researchers have noted performance improvements with as little as one to three milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. For someone who weighs 150 pounds (68 kilograms), that’s 68 to 200 milligrams of caffeine, well within the 400-milligram-a-day limit health experts suggest is safe.

Does that mean athletes should start their day with a supersized mug of coffee? That may indeed be part of their strategy, but a more efficient way to get their fix is through concentrated products with a measured amount of caffeine designed to accommodate athletes on the run — literally.

In fact, makers of sports nutrition products have jumped on the opportunity to provide caffeine-laced supplements like drinks, gels and pills designed for the athletic community.

That said, not all athletes benefit to the same extent from a shot of caffeine. There are high responders and low responders, with some suggestion that coffee lovers may get less of a boost than those who rarely consume caffeine.

Also worth noting is that caffeine works best in endurance athletes versus sprinters or those whose activity involves repeated short bursts of energy. And there’s a shortage of data regarding whether caffeine improves performance in the weight room.

So before you go out and buy one of those giant cans of energy drinks in hopes that it will produce huge results, keep in mind that doses of caffeine beyond the recommended three milligrams per kilogram of body weight provide no extra benefit. In fact, too much caffeine has been linked to adverse side effects like jitters, increased heart rate and impaired performance. Last month, The New York Times reported that 18 deaths have been linked to energy drinks containing high levels of caffeine.

The idea isn’t to over-consume caffeine in the hope that it will give you a competitive edge. Rather, the strategy is to deliver moderate doses of caffeine before, and in some cases during, endurance events as a pick-me-up when performance is lagging.

This kind of strategy is for adults only. There are no studies linking caffeine to improved performance in children or youth. In fact, health experts are worried about the amount of caffeine kids are ingesting in the form of energy drinks, which are sold freely to children of all ages. Children 10 to 12 years of age should limit caffeine consumption to 85 milligrams a day.

When it comes to caffeine, a little goes a long way. So go ahead and grab a cup of coffee in the morning, then head to the gym and see if you can find that higher gear when you need it.

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